Postal III
Postal III was supposed to be the third game in the Postal series but has since been disowned by RWS. The game was officially announced in 2006 with very different gameplay mechanics, weapons, and sound effects, with the open-world gameplay of POSTAL 2. '' Due to Akella nearly going bankrupt because of the 2007-2008 financial crisis, the PS3/X360/Mac ports were cancelled with the game being released far from what Running with Scissors originally envisioned. Because of this, ''Postal III is considered a spin-off which was subsequently retconned in Paradise Lost. Plot After nuking the town of Paradise in Postal 2's expansion Apocalypse Weekend, The Postal Dude finds himself in Paradise's sister town Catharsis. Out of cash and needing gas, the Postal Dude seeks employment. Gameplay Unlike its predecessors, Postal III is played in a third-person, over-the-shoulder perspective. Another notable change is that Postal 3 is fairly linear in contrast to POSTAL 2 with any open world elements left in an unlockable freeroam mode. In addition to returning gameplay elements and weapons, Segways are introduced as vehicles in the game along with a morality system based on whether the player uses violent or nonviolent actions when completing a level. This affects the story leading the Dude toward either the Good path or the Insane path. Development aka what went wrong Planning and development of Postal III began in early 2006 after Running with Scissors (developer of the Postal Series) made a business deal with Akella (Russian Publisher of the Postal Series and at the time, the "EA" of Russia). Initially planning was for the console market with a release date sometime in 2008. Development of Postal III continued swimmingly with several videos released during 2007-2009 showcasing what the game was suppose to be like. While it didn't make its 2008 release, it was looking worth the wait with free roaming areas and errand based gameplay of Postal 2. Unfortunately, due to the 2007-2008 financial crisis, business in Russia tank acrossed the board causing Akella to make several bad decisions with the worst being to fire the Postal III beta team (who are commonly referred to as the A-team and are responsible for the previous builds) and instead have the game rebuilt by a different, less experienced team (commonly known as the B-team). It was at this point that Postal III shifted both in style and design from what was originally envisioned by RWS. Akella was facing bankruptcy and sought to ship the game in a desperate attempt to make money. It didn't work. Release After the release of the unfinished game now known as PIII, Running With Scissors did there best to calm the Postal Community and help them as best they could. While things had broken down between RWS and Akella, it was the refusal of Akella to release the PIII Source Code which ultimately burned the bridge. After this, RWS disowned the game, removing it from their store. Akella had narrowly averted bankruptcy by selling its unsold games as bank collateral (Seriously) with its vice president blaming its incompetence on the 2008 global economic meltdown, the rise of internet game sales, and the decision to release Postal III. No Shit. Aftermath PIII would later be retconned out of Postal canon in Paradise Lost as nothing more than a coma dream. Still, this has not dissuaded several fans from trying to fix the mess that is Postal III. While the Source Code has yet to be released (more than likely lost by Akella during their bankruptcy), the SDK for PIII would eventually be leaked onto the RWS forum. This gave rise to the "Beta" Mod which tries to make PIII more like it's 2007-2009 version. This would end at version 1.1 with the team responsible later deciding just to rebuild PIII as a Mod for POSTAL 2 known as Postal 3 Unreal as they've done all they could without the Source Code. External links *Steam Store Page *ModDb page for Postal III SDK *Postal III Beta Mod 1.1 Category:Akella Category:Postal III